Fiorecet

[brownie6366]

I suffer from daily headaches that come from my neck.  I also have on average 2 to 3 full blown migraines a month.  I know that my headaches and migraines come from 2 leaking disks in my lower neck.  I am going to have the surgery very soon.

I take pain medication for the neck pain but it doesn't seem to help with the headaches or migraines.  The doctor prescribed Fiorecet to me for the headaches.  I haven't taken it yet.  I was reading up on it first and of course it states that it has side effects.  Has anyone taken this medication for headaches and is it habit forming?  What kind of side effects did you have?

Any feed back would be great.

[Coral4157]

Oh my goodness, fiorinal with codeine has been a life saver for me!!! I can take it when I get a migraine and in 20-30 minutes it is tolerable again. I am a single mother and full time nursing student with work on the weekends so without being able to take the edge off of my chronic migraines my life would be so useless. I've been getting migraines since I was 4 my mother said and this was a miracle drug for me. I take about 3 of them if I second guess my migraine and wait too long but if I catch it at the onset 1 works fine. I also take Elavil every night before bed for maintenance. Good luck, by the way, the side effects are minimal for me, I can still carry on driving, working, even fine at school and clinical. I do let my teachers know that I took it during clinical however because patient safety is my first concern. I don't want to be responsible for a drug calculation that is complicated or ambulating a patient alone just in case. I ask for the extra person to help and double check my calculations as a precaution. If you take the firocet make sure you try to eat something first to minimize gastric upset. Firocet and Fironal are almost the same I think, a balbital compound but the Fironal has a low dose of codeine in it that is essential for helping my migraines. Without the codeine I can eat a whole bottle with no relief. Good luck!

[jtssteph]

Fioricet is not that strong of a drug at least in my case. However, you have to be carefull about taking too much of it because it contains aceteminophen (tylenol), which is really hard on your liver if you take too much of it.

ANY pain reliever from aspirin to morphine has both side effects and are habit forming in the sense that if you take them on a regular basis you will experience rebound headaches.

By the way, I have nearly the same neck problem as you have. Only problem is mine is not operatable. After 8 years of being at the doctor nearly every day for shots of demerol or morphine, I had had enough of being there. I went cold turkey off of all of my pain medication and now I live with chronic pain. It's the most horrible thing that I could wish upon a person. But at least now I'm not a zombie from the pain killers. I hope you find something that willl help youl. Migraines are utter hell.

[RunningMom]

I too, had migraines and headaches everyday from my neck.  Since my surgery(I'm 7 weeks post op) I've been getting the headaches/migraines about once every two weeks.  I take maxalt and fiorinal and the maxalt works much better.  The fiorinal does not make a huge difference, so I rarely take it.